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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Worrying conversation

14 replies

Rockybooboo · 08/06/2021 18:39

just need to offload.

I've had a friend of 10 years standing. We've always got on really well. She split with her husband and has been dating a new man who's a very senior police officer for about 5 years. I met him once a few years ago and he seemed ok and she loves him but I've noticed her attitude towards women has changed. She moans about her friends and is very derogatory about his ex wife although she's never met her.

I met up with a bunch of friends including her a few weeks ago and she started about her boyfriend not getting promoted because the police were too politically correct and he's a white middle aged man (we are in our 50s) and he sneers at the groups set up for ethnic minorities, LGBT and Women She then brought up the subject of rape (this was within a couple of weeks of a police officer being accused in the Sarah Everard case). She said that men have been programmed to think that if a woman is dressed scantily, she wants sex! That Muslim countries have lower rape cases as the women are dressed appropriately and that women should look 'classy' to avoid sexual assault. She also said that most accusation of rape were lies. I doubt she would have rape statistics to hand so I'm assuming it's from him. I was so taken aback that i struggled to form a coherent argument.

I think I'm a bit sensitive to this as many years ago I went on a couple of dates with a man. At the end of one of the dates I'd decided he wasn't for me. My house was just around the corner and we walked there and I phoned for a taxi for home and made him coffee. He suddenly leapt on me and pinned me down and started ripping at my clothes. I kicked him really hard and he got off and shouted really aggressively calling me all the names under the sun. I sent him out the house but was terribly shaken. The following morning he called and said it was a misunderstanding to which I replied no you tried to rape me. I distort of get the impression
wasn't the first time he'd assaulted someone.

I never reported it because I afraid it would backfire. He had a director level job at a Blue Chip company. I'd invited him home and been drinking. I'd been a year out of a long term relationship and only just starting going out again so very vulnerable emotionally. I regret this as he might have done it again. I know that for every woman who lies about being raped, there's probably a lot more that are too scared to go to the police.

I'm usually fully supportive of the police. My dad was a police officer (he'd passed away 30 years ago) he loved the job but not the culture, I've got female friends who are retired/serving police officers, and I've always found the police helpful in the rare occasions I've dealt with them. I know there are people with misogynistic views but it's worrying when it's a police officer.

OP posts:
Orf1abc · 08/06/2021 18:46

It sounds like you were quite naive about the kind of views that are far too common in the police. The culture hasn't changed since your dad's time, it's just better hidden.

EmbarrassingAdmissions · 08/06/2021 19:25

I'm so sorry that your friend sounds as if she's parroting her boyfriend's views - rebarbative as they are. Your own experience makes this especially distressing.

Do you want to reflect on this and then contact her to say you were a little taken aback? Or do you think this probably signals the end of your friendship - this would be sad as it's so longstanding, particularly if there's no opportunity to discuss why you feel this way.

AtrociousCircumstance · 08/06/2021 19:29

Dump the friend. She’s taken on the foulest views.

Avoid them like poison.

BlueButtercups · 08/06/2021 19:32

Did you correct her ?

AtrociousCircumstance · 08/06/2021 19:35

The OP was shocked and triggered and obviously didn’t feel able to ‘correct’ her friend. Hmm

BlueButtercups · 08/06/2021 19:37

@AtrociousCircumstance

The OP was shocked and triggered and obviously didn’t feel able to ‘correct’ her friend. Hmm

Ditch the Bitch

risefromyourgrave · 08/06/2021 19:41

I was watching the news this evening and the CCTV of Sarah Everard before she was murdered came on.
I said to my DH that she is a perfect example of why what a woman is wearing makes no difference as to whether she gets raped and/or murdered.
Sarah couldn’t have been much more covered up and that piece of shit still attacked and murdered her.

MouseyTheVampireSlayer · 08/06/2021 20:01

That Muslim countries have lower rape cases
India
Saudi Arabia
Dubai
Afghanistan

Yes, shining beacons for rape statistics. Not.

In some of these countries a woman's testimony that a man raped her is not enough on its own and needs another man as an eye witness.
So of course rape crime statistics are low. How many men stand around watching a rape and then later say, yes it looked like a rape but I didn't stop it.

Your friend is an idiot.
Dump her.

Manderleyagain · 08/06/2021 20:09

Do you want to reflect on this and then contact her to say you were a little taken aback? Or do you think this probably signals the end of your friendship - this would be sad as it's so longstanding, particularly if there's no opportunity to discuss why you feel this way.
This is the right question. You are obviously surprised by these new views and think she appears to have changed her values (presumably to match his) which is quite worrying.

Rockybooboo · 08/06/2021 20:37

I did say that I didn't agree as did my other friend buto yes just too shocked.

OP posts:
Sensateria · 08/06/2021 20:49

I can understand your total shock and not challenging your friend on the spot.

I got chatting to a female police officer a few years ago at a family BBQ and was utterly gobsmacked at the stuff she was spouting about a very prominent criminal case at the time, she outright called the teenage victims “little slags” and had some disgusting views on “rape” - she actually did those finger quotation marks when she said the word.

I was angry with myself for a long while afterwards for not challenging her, I was just so shocked. I actually looked into reporting her.

I don’t know how your friendship can come back from her comment given what you’ve been through. I take it your friend doesn’t know about that.

PlanDeRaccordement · 08/06/2021 20:54

You can only blame the new boyfriend so much. But most of blame is on your friend. She probably always believed such misogynistic things and he’s only emboldened her to express her views. I’d end the friendship.

CharlieParley · 08/06/2021 21:46

Sorry Rockybooboo Flowers that sounds upsetting, especially when it's a good friend. And considering that you experienced a serious rape attempt that you, like so many of us, didn't feel you could report, it makes her insensitive, ill-judged remarks even more hurtful.

I do know that those working in law enforcement can develop a somewhat warped view of people, because they deal with some of the worst of society. I had a family member who swore blind that wasn't true because he wouldn't be like that, ever. Until he left his crime unit and moved to a different one altogether and within a year he had a different view of the matter.

But your friend's views are so astonishingly ignorant, I wonder if that's all coming from the new man.

Take this claim:

That Muslim countries have lower rape cases as the women are dressed appropriately

What happens to too many women who report having been raped in conservative Muslim countries is that the police will definitely arrest the victim for having had sex outside of marriage. They do sometimes arrest the rapist, but even where they do, the rapist almost always walks free while his victim is punished. And she is punished by the state, society and frequently her own family, who are burdened with the shame of her rape.

So rape case numbers are lower in these countries because the cost of reporting a rape is too high.

Or this:

She also said that most accusation of rape were lies.

There is quite a bit of recent research into false rape accusations that shows (IIRC) that in the UK they amount to 4% of all reported rapes while across Europe and in the US rates of between 2 to 10% were found.

Older research is quite unreliable as the judgement of whether an allegation was false or not was often made based on the researcher's idea of how a rape victim should look or behave.

But the new research seems far more reliable, even though methodical issues that affect their accuracy remain. For example, even these low numbers are often inflated, by including incidents the police has logged as "no crime". Which is what happens if a neighbour phones the police to report a rape, because that's what they think they heard, and when the police investigate (if they do) nothing comes of it. That's not a false allegation, but it's often still counted as one.

A 2005 Home Office study for instance found that both police and prosecutors were prone to overestimating the number of false rape claims considerably. In this study it was shown that the police had classified 8% of over 2600 rape cases as false allegations, but an investigation showed that only 2.5% met the criteria for a false allegation.

And false rape accusations aren't always made with malicious intent. A CPS study in the UK in 2011/12 for instance found that half of the women making a false allegation were either under 21 and/or vulnerable. And most of them don't name a perpetrator.

We also know that only a fraction of rapes are actually reported to the police. So the proportion of false rape claims to actual rape crimes committed is even smaller.

Wikipedia has quite a good entry on the issue: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape

DdraigGoch · 08/06/2021 22:22

That Muslim countries have lower rape cases as the women are dressed appropriately and that women should look 'classy' to avoid sexual assault.
Muslim countries may well have fewer recorded rape cases, but I'm pretty certain that the reason for it is that never mind the worry of being disbelieved (as may dissuade a victim in the UK from reporting), women in places like the UAE risk being prosecuted themselves if they report a rape.

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